The 'Truth'

[Maeght]

I am not being drawn into non consequential arguments about creation or evolution.
My post is clear that Darwin kept his order of evolution to the same order a Genesis and Gods creation of animals and man.

If you don't want a discussion then fine - don't raise the subject. Your post was clear that you made that claim. If you make a claim you have to expect people on a discussion thread to discuss that don't you?

You can go off and do as you please.

Thanks.

But I am addressing the issues relevant to what I posted and you replied to.

You carry on - but if you make claims to support your beliefs expect them to be questioned.

So now we see I was correct it is the end of the discussion on that level.

'I'm right and I'm not listening to anyone else' puts fingers in ears 'La. la, la, la ...' Come on Sassy, you can do better than that I'm sure.

If you want to ask me about anything else. Then readdress your post and be plain about the issues in relation to God and the bible which you are disagreeing with.

I'm not disagreeing with the Bible - I am questioning claims you make about it and raising the possibility you might be wrong in what you claim. I have no belief in God so inevitably see the Bible differently to you who do. You suggest that Genesis matches scientific understanding and I have recognised a superficial correlation in some areas but not in others. I'm sure you find this different to the normal argumentative, confrontational approach taken on here but who knows - perhaps it will catch on.

[Sassy]

Try putting it in bold type, she might catch on then.

Try truth you might not look so desperate and deliberately IGNORANT.

She said she ONLY NEEDED THE MATERIAL....

I guess you have no sense of shame or sensibility when it comes supporting a lie.

[Shaker]

You said you only believed in the MATERIAL

She didn't say any such thing. What Rhiannon wrote was:

I don't know that there's more than the material; what I believe is that we don't need more than the material.

[Shaker]

Try truth you might not look so desperate and deliberately IGNORANT.

She said she ONLY NEEDED THE MATERIAL....

That's right. What she didn't say - which you claimed she had said but didn't - is that she only believes in the material. What she said was that whether there's anything more than the material she doesn't know (nor do I, though she may have an opinion that leans more to one side than the other, as I do), so your attribution of a position that she doesn't hold is either stupidity or wilful mendacity.

[Shaker]

Nothing to do with Paganism.

Indeed; and yet you were the one who introduced paganism in #129.

[Rhiannon]

Pagans needeth not the non-material; verily, there are those who forsake gods altogether, sayeth Rhiannon.

(I'm hoping Sass finds that more comprehensible)

[Shaker]

Put in bold and underlined - should nail it.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sane,

I think there are, as Shaker has noted as regards Vlad's posts, a surfeit of isms. We seem to have multiple isms suggested for the opposite of materialism, when I don't think it is really clear anyone is such a thing.

We love our little labels but use them as if they are exhaustive descriptions of people rather than the roughest short hand. Better to talk to the person and not the ism.

Well I think I was talking to the person, that person being Rhiannon who I know is a very spiritual person, Rhiannon can find happiness in taking her dog for a walk, but that leaves me open to, does spiritual mean happy, we don't actively seek unhappy.

What I do know is, we are all spiritual animals, it is how we have evolved, when all our basic needs are met, we then go on to the spiritual, we have a friend in common who finds the spiritual in going at mach three with his beard on fire or just plucking away at his banjo ( I said plucking ) but the question remains, or questions, do we need material to achieve spiritual, is the sun on the back of your neck material, and is the spiritual experience, material?

And yes I do realise that I am probably talking to myself, what is spiritual, do we need the material to achieve spiritual.

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

I don't know if I'm a 'spiritual' person, Gonners, but I have a strong sense of the spiritual. What I don't believe is that there's any need for the supernatural in order to have a rich, fulfilling and nourished spiritual life.

[floo]

What does the term 'spiritual' actually mean?

[Rhiannon]

It means different things to different people, Floo, but to me it means looking after the part of ourselves that has needs that go beyond what is necessary for our physical survival.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Floo,

My definition, something that takes you out of yourself in a good way, but I could be completely wrong.

Gonnagle.

[floo]

It means different things to different people, Floo, but to me it means looking after the part of ourselves that has needs that go beyond what is necessary for our physical survival.

I am not sure what that means?

[Rhiannon]

I am not sure what that means?

It's the part of me that needs to marvel at the clouds or the taste of olives. That loves playing music too loudly in my car. That feels the hairs on the back of my neck rise when reading certain poetry. It's the part of me that reaches to take my child's hand. 

Yours will be right for you.

[Nearly Sane]

Dear Sane,

Well I think I was talking to the person, that person being Rhiannon who I know is a very spiritual person, Rhiannon can find happiness in taking her dog for a walk, but that leaves me open to, does spiritual mean happy, we don't actively seek unhappy.

What I do know is, we are all spiritual animals, it is how we have evolved, when all our basic needs are met, we then go on to the spiritual, we have a friend in common who finds the spiritual in going at mach three with his beard on fire or just plucking away at his banjo ( I said plucking ) but the question remains, or questions, do we need material to achieve spiritual, is the sun on the back of your neck material, and is the spiritual experience, material?

And yes I do realise that I am probably talking to myself, what is spiritual, do we need the material to achieve spiritual.

Gonnagle.

It was prompted by your comment rather than a direct reply. I am with Floo, I am not really sure about what spiritual is but it definitely doesn't seem from your view of it, to be anyway removed from the material. But I was making a more general point, that we get hung up on philosophic ideas like 'material' but we don't live our lives as if that is significant. We accept that running in front of a bus is a generally bad idea, and we act as if we have free will.

Not only do we like putting others on boxes, we often do it to ourselves. Perhaps the question works better if you just asked people how they feel connected, or lose themselves and not worry about naming it beyond that or how it links to the material, whatever that is.

There is a place for very narrow, defined philosophic discussions but too often on here we end up with a neither philosophy nor everyday discussions, as we take the isms, and then ignore the restrictions placed on them. And I have been as guilty on that as anyone
 

[Shaker]

I am not sure what that means?

Put it this way: T.S. Eliot (I think) said that culture begins once your basic animal needs - food; drink; clothing; shelter from the elements - are satisfied. With those elementary things sorted you can turn your mind to other stuff that's not just about the immediate demands of survival. Eliot called it culture, but you could as easily make an argument that you can call it spirituality. Or the aesthetic - personally I think the two things overlap at the very least and may even be synonymous. Writing sonnets and symphonies and stopping to enjoy the sunset seem to have damn all to do with survival in any evolutionary sense, yet people do these things because they satisfy needs that we as humans have for creation, for symmetry and beauty.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon,

I don't know if I'm a 'spiritual' person, Gonners, but I have a strong sense of the spiritual.

Ain't that the same thing?

 

What I don't believe is that there's any need for the supernatural in order to have a rich, fulfilling and nourished spiritual life.

To much talk for me regarding supernatural, woo, supernatural stops being super when we finally find an explanation, man is supernatural, of course we have thousands of theories for us, life is supernatural and we have thousands of theories for life, when the likes of Prof Cox says, "it is a miracle we are even here" I just have to nod my head and agree.

The Universe is supernatural, you can preach to me all about the big bang, gravity, how one element can change into another element, but that tells me nothing of the why, the why anything.

Oh and by the way, I am listening to thousands of Tic fans having a spiritual experience right now.

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

Put it this way: T.S. Eliot (I think) said that culture begins once your basic animal needs - food; drink; clothing; shelter from the elements - are satisfied. With those elementary things sorted you can turn your mind to other stuff that's not just about the immediate demands of survival. Eliot called it culture, but you could as easily make an argument that you can call it spirituality. Or the aesthetic - personally I think the two things overlap at the very least and may even be synonymous. Writing sonnets and symphonies and stopping to enjoy the sunset seem to have damn all to do with survival in any evolutionary sense, yet people do these things because they satisfy needs that we as humans have for creation, for symmetry and beauty.

I'm not sure it stops with culture or even the aesthetic. Getting caught in a cloudburst is a spiritual experience. Tasting salt on my lips when on the beach is a spiritual experience. My dog attempting to climb on my lap and give me a big stinky Labrador kiss is a spiritual experience. Holding someone who is crying is a spiritual experience. It's all the things we don't need, but without them our lives lose meaning.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Rhiannon,

but without them our lives lose meaning.

Yer on fire today Missus ( you pronounce it Missess in Glaswegian ) Spiritual gives meaning to life, that will do for me

Gonnagle.

[Alan Burns]

OKAY THEN SASSY

You have hooked your audience. Just answer me this; If God made everything who made God?

It is a simple question so please take the time to answer.

This is a very naive question.
This quandary also exists in science - what caused the Big Bang?, and what caused the cause of the Big Bang? ... etc

The problem is that we can only imagine things in the terms of what exists in our own universe.  Time and deterministic science are properties of this universe, but we do not know what exists outside.

There has to be some ultimate source of existence in order for anything to exist.  And this ultimate source of existence is God.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Alan,

I will ask, give the Auditors a break, what is God? answers on a postcard to every religion on this planet.

Gonnagle.

[Shaker]

This is a very naive question.
This quandary also exists in science - what caused the Big Bang?, and what caused the cause of the Big Bang? ... etc

You might have noticed that in the latter scenario there's insufficient data, therefore nobody claims to know. Nobody asserts that this, that or the other is the case. Unlike some I could mention.

The problem is that we can only imagine things in the terms of what exists in our own universe.  Time and deterministic science are properties of this universe, but we do not know what exists outside.

I have no need of that hypothesis.

There has to be some ultimate source of existence in order for anything to exist.  And this ultimate source of existence is God.

Sheer assertion yet again, of course. And as tiresome as ever.

[Rhiannon]

This is a very naive question.
This quandary also exists in science - what caused the Big Bang?, and what caused the cause of the Big Bang? ... etc

The problem is that we can only imagine things in the terms of what exists in our own universe.  Time and deterministic science are properties of this universe, but we do not know what exists outside.

There has to be some ultimate source of existence in order for anything to exist.  And this ultimate source of existence is God.

Yes, there are things that we don't know. That doesn't give you the right to label those things 'God'.

[Shaker]

Yes, there are things that we don't know. That doesn't give you the right to label those things 'God'.

It might be a temporary placeholder for current ignorance for some people, but they'd do well to call it 'X' instead since a great many of the god followers seem very insistent that their god is something similar to a person of sorts with a decided list of likes and dislikes.

Using God as a pseudo-explanation for the universe (pseudo because this so-called explanation is (a) ad hoc and (b) itself stands in need of explanation, so explains nothing) gets you as far as deism, not theism.

[floo]

It's the part of me that needs to marvel at the clouds or the taste of olives. That loves playing music too loudly in my car. That feels the hairs on the back of my neck rise when reading certain poetry. It's the part of me that reaches to take my child's hand. 

Yours will be right for you.

I can't think of anything off hand.